JonTron "Apples and BREAKS" (found episode of web series; 2011)

Over the years, famed internet critic Jon Jafari has taken down several of his videos, usually due to a lack of production quality, or Jafari just not enjoying the final product in retrospect. Nearly all of these videos, such as "Gaming in Public", "Top 10 Overrated Games", "Goldeneye 007 Wii Review", and the recently removed "The League and I", have resurfaced and/or archived in some manner. However, a video titled "Apples and BREAKS", in which the JonTron character mourns over his broken Nintendo DS, was removed by Jafari in 2012 and did not resurface for another two years.

Contents

Content

The video in question, published February 26th of 2011[1], begins with the standard JonTron intro from the time. However, three seconds in, the video and audio distort and become corrupted, and it abruptly cuts to Jafari crying into the mirror while holding a handheld camera. He then runs into the next room where he turns on his DS and becomes hysterical at the sight of the screen, which has clearly been broken beyond repair.

Through his tears, he recounts how he had the DS sitting on his bed and accidentally broke the screen with his knee, and provides an animated graphic to demonstrate it. He continues to sob as he runs to his bird, Jacques, and asks his opinion of it. Jacques tells him to "piss off", adding some comic relief. The video ends with a montage in memory of the fallen "comrade", set to "Winds of Change" by the Scorpions.

Search

In early December of 2012, Jafari privated the video, rendering it unable to be viewed by the general public. A "hunt" was conducted by the Jontron Subreddit in February of 2014, in which "#RebreakTheApple" was conceived, and began to trend on twitter.[2] The hunt and the hashtag were to no avail. In July of 2014, Jafari was a panelist at the "Iron Crafters Panel" at San Diego Comic-Con, and was asked whether or not he would re-release "Apples and BREAKS", to which he said the following:

"Oh boy...It's gonna follow me forever, isn't it! ...I don't know how to answer your question. There're some of my old videos where I just like, didn't think they really fit on the channel anymore, so I just removed them. If there's SUCH a demand for it...we'll see, we'll see, I'll think about it, but thanks for the interest!"

After the statement was made, "#RebreakTheApple" briefly trended, once again to no avail.[3]

On September 25th of 2014, Jafari conducted a live stream on Twitch, dubbed 'Banjo Kazooie for Charity!" in which Jafari attempted to complete the 1998 RareWare game 'Banjo Kazooie' to raise money for the Teach for America Foundation. The first stretch goal of $25,000, after which Jon would film a cover of Katy Perry's "Firework", was reached. Afterward, Jafari had mentioned on stream that if an additional $25,000 was reached, he would re-upload Apples and Breaks for public viewing. However, this goal was not reached, and Jafari did not comment further on the matter.

Finding

The search ended fairly anticlimactically, as, on a YouTuber by the name of ficha13 uploaded the video, stating that they had it burned to a DVD from a while back and hadn't realized it was so sought after. Shortly after its upload, the video was spread and mirrored across countless YouTube channels, in an effort to prevent it from going missing again, should JonTron have tried to take it down. When asked about his reaction to the video being found, he seemed indifferent and amused, stating, "Well, congratulations. Now you have that worthless video."[4] The re-uploaded copy of the video can be viewed below.